SPACE On Ryder Farm Announces 2022 Residency Season, Applications Open Today

Today, for the first time in two years as a result of the pandemic, SPACE on Ryder Farm, the artist residency program and organic farm, opened applications for its 2022 Residency Season. Applications will remain open until January 5, 2022, at 11:59 P.M. ET. SPACE operated several residencies this year, welcoming residents who we had to defer in 2020, but operated at about half our normal capacity due to Covid. In 2022, we will continue to operate at this reduced capacity, which requires some changes in the application process.

Today, applications opened for the 2022 Working Farm, Family Residency, and Institutional Residency. In addition, applications opened for BLKSPACE, a new program, offering Black creatives the opportunity to gather communally, play, make art, and breathe with their fellow Black artists. Finally, in 2022, Greenhouse Residency applications will be available by nomination only.

To fulfill our final pre-Covid-19 commitments and deferments, SPACE is not opening applications this year for the Creative Residency, Film Lab, or Season Extension. SPACE expects to open applications to all 2023 residency programs in the autumn of 2022.

For the 2022 programming year, select alumni from SPACE residencies will serve as Curators and be involved in the outreach, application review, and interview processes. They will help curate 2022 residents, compose the cohort for their specific program, and engage with the residents while they are on Ryder Farm.

Led by an all Black woman team, Interfest (Kristen Adele Calhoun and Nikki Vera) will curate BLKSPACE: two consecutive, weeklong residencies for Black creatives. Additionally, The Working Farm will be curated by playwright Vichet Chum. The Family Residency and the Greenhouse Residency will both have curators who will be announced in the future.

"Identifying curators from among SPACE's diverse alumni is a deliberate tactic that comes straight from the strategic plan we released earlier this year," says Creative Director Kate Eminger, who is organizing this year's residency programs. "It's one of the ways SPACE is working to decentralize leadership, diversify the ways we reach artists from different backgrounds and lived experience, and guard against contributing to oppression. Our ultimate goal is to create a more inclusive, diverse, and radically hospitable experience for the SPACE community, hand-in-hand with the Curators."

Another change to the 2022 SPACE residency season is that Greenhouse Residency applicants will be by nomination only. Nominations will prioritize aspiring playwrights or theater writers who have not previously had access to the professional theatre community through traditional means. A diverse network of theatre professionals will nominate participants (age 18 or older) who have demonstrated promise in their voice but have lacked access to opportunities to focus on and develop it into a work that can be produced. While at SPACE, Greenhouse residents will have time and space to develop their voices as well as to participate in workshops with mentor playwrights and other theatre professionals. The residency is intended for those who are unaware of--or lack access to--new play development or artistic residency opportunities and who may not have considered playwriting as a potential career, despite having artistic passion and potential.

Individuals or groups working in the arts or social justice are encouraged to apply for SPACE's signature programs:

The Working Farm

SPACE's resident writers' group offers five playwrights, composers, lyricists and/or librettists five fully subsidized residency weeks on Ryder Farm during the course of the May-October season. This year's Working Farm residency will be curated by Working Farm alum Vichet Chum.

Alumni of the program include Tony-nominee Robert Askins (Hand to God), Pulitzer finalist Will Arbery (Heroes of the Fourth Turning), Jeff Augustin (The New Englanders), Pulitzer finalist Clare Barron (Dance Nation), Obie-winner Kate Benson (A Beautiful Day in November...), Obie-winner Adam Bock (A Life), Olivier-nominee Sarah Burgess (Dry Powder), Lucille Lortel-winner David Cale (We're Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time), Mia Chung (Catch as Catch Can), Emmy-nominee Cusi Cram (Novenas for a Lost Hospital), Obie-winner David Greenspan (I'm Looking For Helen Twelvetrees), MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Samuel D. Hunter (Greater Clements), Pulitzer finalist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon), CA Johnson (Thirst), Dan LeFranc, (The Big Meal), Lucille Lortel-winner Antoinette Nwandu (Pass Over), Lucille Lortel-winner Max Posner (The Treasurer), Jen Silverman (Collective Rage), Charly Evon Simpson (Behind the Sheet), Shaina Taub (The Devil Wears Prada), James Anthony Tyler (Dolphins and Sharks), Mfoniso Udofia (The Ufot Cycle) and Whiting Award-winner Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns).

The Family Residency

Founded in association with The Lilly Awards Foundation (spearheaded by Julia Jordan, Marsha Norman and Pia Scala-Zankel), the Family Residency supports working parents and their children (ages 5-12) by providing structured work time for parent-artists and creative and nature-focused programming for their children. This year's curator for the Family Residency will be announced soon.

Alumni of the program include composer and playwright César Alvarez (FUTURITY), playwright and screenwriter Sheila Callaghan (Showtime's Shameless), Tony-winning costume designer Linda Cho, visual artist Adriane Colburn, visual artist Delano Dunn, podcaster Hillary Frank (The Longest Shortest Time), playwright Sarah Gancher (I'll Get You Back Again), Obie Award-winning playwright and director Julia Jarcho (Grimly Handsome), Obie-winning playwright Kirsten Greenidge (Milk Like Sugar), writer and game designer Christopher Vu Gandin Le, writer Pooja Makhijani, visual artist Natalia Nakazawa, MacArthur "Genius" Fellow and playwright Sarah Ruhl, composer Georgia Stitt, New York Times bestselling writer Rebecca Traister (Good and Mad) and their children.

BLKSPACE

Led by an all Black woman team, Interfest (Kristen Adele Calhoun and Nikki Vera) will curate BLKSPACE: two consecutive, weeklong residencies for Black creatives to use the full resources of SPACE on Ryder Farm however they see fit. BLKSPACE provides Black individual artists, activists, organizers and small groups (up to 4 people) the opportunity to create and ideate away from the stress and noise of everyday life and in the company of other Black people. Time at BLKSPACE is granted to Black individuals and small groups who lay out a specific need for their residency and whose work forwards Black Liberation.

In acknowledgement of the history of unpaid stolen labor of African and Black American people, there is no required "give back" while BLKSPACE residents are on the farm. Should residents choose, they are welcome to participate in a short, informal sharing of their work while in residence at BLKSPACE with their fellow residents and BLKSPACE team. The only requirements of BLKSPACE residents is that they join in the three communal meals daily.

Institutional Residencies

Institutional Residencies provide 501c(3) organizations and incorporated ensembles with time and space for the writing or workshopping of artistic commissions, DEIJ goal-setting, strategic planning, and retreat opportunities.

Alumni of the program include The Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids, Ars Nova, The Dramatists Guild Fund, EST, Goodman Theatre, The Kennedy Center, New Dramatists, Page 73, Playwrights Horizons, Roundabout Theatre Company, Soho Rep, Steppenwolf Theatre, Theatre Communications Group and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

Covid-19 Vaccine Information

Because SPACE residents routinely dine together, work together, and inhabit indoor buildings with SPACE staff (who are in turn part of their own communities), minimizing risk associated with COVID-19 requires full participation in straightforward, clear policies. To this end, all residents are required to be fully vaccinated as a condition of attending a 2022 SPACE residency. A similar policy is in effect for SPACE staff and guests.

SPACE recognizes medical contraindications and closely held religious beliefs may prevent some residents from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Furthermore, SPACE knows that many have not had fair and just access to the COVID-19 vaccine and have been disproportionately impacted by the virus, leading to the distrust of government health agencies and hesitancy towards the vaccine itself. Such individuals will be asked to follow a thorough set of safety protocols including quarantining and PCR testing before arrival. Additionally, all residents, regardless of vaccination status, will be tested on the first day of their residency.

Please contact Chief Operating Officer, Allyson Davis, at allyson@spaceonryderfarm.org with any related questions or concerns.

For more information on the COVID-19 vaccines available in the US, and where to get one please visit: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines.html

Application Information Session

SPACE will be hosting an informational session with the 2022 Curators about the application and selection process, date and time to be announced.